Video Games

When reading Paul Gee's opinions on video games it became very interesting to me how involved children can become in a video game but that never seems to be the case when they are in the classroom. I have asked myself this many times, having a boyfriend with two younger brothers who are constantly spending all of their time playing video games and a room ate who is playing games on his computer practically every moment I am ever home. One claim made was that we should engage kids in school the same way they are in video games. This claim would most likely cause a great deal of conflict when read by most parents but an example I thought of from my children's PE class I thought could help to somewhat help this claim along. In my class we discussed different ways to help children today improve the motor skills. A great way we came up with was the game called Dance Dance Revolution. This game helps children to become more balanced on their feet having to step quickly to different arrows under their feet as well as engages their brains to send motor skill messages quickly telling their body how and when to move. So I do believe that we as future teachers can get positive things from video games when it comes to ideas on ways we can teach our students. This does by no means say that kids should only be playing video games but video games can be educational and a productive activity for kids to both learn and have fun at the same time.